Life by the Seed

By Charles Williams

Life by the Seed

Life by the Seed was written by Daniel Jones. The novel talks about his time spent in public school, specifically about his eighth-grade year all the way up to his twelfth-grade year and his final moments in the educational system. Daniel does talk about the times when he isnt in school, like how he hangs out with his friends or does things outside of school. He also talks to himself in a way in certain situations (which is basically on a constant basis) since he feels that nobody would truly understand what he is thinking about or would reject it. He mentions his current significant other and how they met each other as friends, which eventually turns into something more early in the novel, and how they maintain the relationship through the course of the novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524569167

Charles Williams

Charles Williams (1909–1975) was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years before leaving to work in the electronics industry. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime. Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm (published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay. Williams died in California in 1975. 

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Copyright © 2016 by Daniel Jones.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016920651

ISBN:      Hardcover         978-1-5245-6914-3

                Softcover           978-1-5245-6915-0

                eBook               978-1-5245-6916-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/13/2016

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Contents

Chapter 1 Before Middle School And High School

Chapter 2 More Backstory (Current Stuff), Daniel’s Views On Things, And Elementary School (’Cause Why Not)

Chapter 3 Eighth Grade (Last Year Of Eagle View Middle School)

Chapter 4 Eighth Grade (Middle Of The School Year)

Chapter 5 8Th Grade (Last Moments Of Middle School And Into The Summer Months)

Chapter 6 Freshman Year (Start Of Mile High School)

Chapter 7 Midway Into Freshman Year

Chapter 8 End Of Freshman Year (Into The Summer Months, You Know)

Chapter 9 Sophomore Year (You Know, The Beginning Of The Year)

Chapter 10 Sophomore Year (Alex’s Party, Then Midway Into The School Year)

Chapter 11 Sophomore Year- End Of Days (School Days, You Mean)

Chapter 12 Junior Year (Only One More Year, Then We’re Out This Biz)

Chapter 13 Midyear Of Junior Year (Half Of A Year Before We All Party!)

Chapter 14 Junior Year (End)

Chapter 15 Senior Year (Ha, Daniel, You’re So Close, Yet So Far)

Chapter 16 Senior Year! (Science Class Results, Heather’s House, Then Mid-Year: Daniel’s House, Bro’s Date, Daniel’s Overactive Dreams)

Chapter 17.A Senior Year! (The Whole Daytime Before Prom)

Chapter 17.B Prom Night (Part 1: Day Of Prom Leading Into The First-Half Of Prom)

Chapter 17.C Prom Night (Prom, Dj And Heather’s Moment, Dj’s House)

Chapter 18 Graduation (The Last Chapter …)

Acknowledgments

Bonus Chapter (Author’s Words)

Author’s Notes

CHAPTER 1

Before Middle School and High School

The best memories you will have is in high school. College will add on to those memories, from my father, Nathan Jones.

Well, I can’t say that it was a lie; it’s flipping true. I can still remember the people I met from both high school and college, and I’m still friends with some of them to this day, and my old ball and chain? I met up with her in middle school, and after we both graduated from college (With her first to graduate, then Danny-boy), the thought of marriage entered her mind. I can still remember the conversation we shared and where we were at. (Setting: Daniel and Heather, his wife currently, were walking around their old neighborhood, years after their life in high school. It’s about dusk, and he had his arm around her.) She said to me while her head was on my shoulder, Since we have known each other since middle school and we’re still together, maybe you and I should get married. I stopped. Heather raised her head and noticed how I looked down, grabbed my chin, and started to ponder at her request. After seconds of pondering, I said, No, I mean, we both know how much we love each other, so why should we put a ring on it? Heather had the look of someone who was crushing her dreams. (Well, you kinda were. I mean, you two loved each other for a while now, and she thought your initial response would be Yeah sure, I just have to make it a surprise to you.) And so while I am writing this and trying to scoop up my memories to tell you, I’ll also try to think up of ways to propose to her without me feeling anxious or nervous. (Which is a pretty normal feeling to have when you’re about to propose to someone … Are you trying to reminisce about the first time you met her and what she liked?) No … I’m writing this to tell the reader about my primary school years. (Sure you are, Daniel, sure you are …)

Well, seeing how I didn’t have to do this (And you’re doing it anyways …), I guess I can tell you the stories from when I was an eighth grader, all the way up to my last moments as a senior in high school, just for the hell of it. But first, let’s start with my family first so you can better know how I was raised. First things first, I grew up in a household of five: my mother, my father, my eldest brother, me, and my youngest sister. Names? Well, let’s get that out of the way. You already know my father’s name. Elizabeth is my mother’s name, Owen is my older brother’s name, and my younger sister’s name is Jessica, and right in between Owen and Jessica is me, Daniel, but I also go by DJ from friends.

Well anyways, I’m going to give out my stories. I’m not quite sure if Owen or Jessica will tell stories of their own. (Well, Owen I’m sure has a lot to tell. But he doesn’t feel like telling it to the whole wide world. And Jessica, I’m not even sure if she would like to tell her experiences.) So it starts out like this: Owen was four years old when I was born, and later on, Jessica was born when I was seven and Owen was eleven, so if people ran up to us from a place like a grocery store and witness Owen, Jessica, and I in that said store and if you so ask, So who’s the youngest out of the three of you? With Jessica resembling a woman at this point, I would point to her, but Owen would elbow my side and say, You’re twenty-eight. Not twelve, at least not anymore.

You know, the world has gone mad, but it seems that my parents have looked for the positives in the world. (Even though there is none.) (In the darkness of most things, there is a slight glimmer of light.) They went through some hardships and more, but they’re perfectly sound. They went through some stuff that we couldn’t even go through; and by we I mean Jessica, Owen, and I. They went through hardships and more. (Like Nathan losing a close childhood friend when he was younger and Elizabeth losing a father when she was six years young.) Well anyways, let’s talk about my eldest brother and my younger sister for a sec. My older brother is a ladies ‘man. I think he dated half of the girls in his graduating class, while he was going to the same school that I would later on go to. Now, my brother’s problem with girls when he was still a student was that they acted way too high-class for their own good, well, with some of ’em. It’s just you have to find the right one, cause with a bad one, they’re expecting you to buy everything that catches their fancy. And sometimes you have to stomp your foot on the ground and say, ‘I can’t buy every little thing that catches your fancy, babe. You will have to learn to live without that necklace or those $150 high-heeled shoes from whatever shoemakers.’ And after hanging out with a couple of girls before I met up with Heather, I can get that.

I used to be all like, Girls are like another person who can help you fight against the world. I’m still like that; a small part of me is like that. But sometime after high school, 70 percent of my mind thinks exactly what Owen said to me, and I would think, So … let me get this right, you expect me to get this, when you can get it on your own. Most likely because you have enough money to get it. So explain to me why I should get this for you. (And she’ll mostly say something like, Because it’s manly to get things for your significant other. And you’ll probably sprout an argument from that. First of all, we’re not married, so drop the ‘significant other’ crap. Second, who said I would get anything for you? And you two would argue forever until someone broke up with someone else. But nine times out of ten you wouldn’t want to test the waters saying stuff like that, or would you?) Well, girl problems, as what Tyler the Creator said, Whoever can make me the happiest can make me the saddest. Or something like that. And this girl I’ve dated was the definition of that saying. She made me the happiest at some moments and the saddest at others.

Like, I can remember this one time when it was the summer of my seventh—grade year; and that girl and I were sitting out on my front porch, watching the night sky. Daniel …, she said, turning her head toward me from the night sky. I looked back at her and said, Yeah?

I think I love you.

I know. Not many girls can resist the charms I give out. She started doing that girl giggling you see from old television shows, and I moved in for the kill. (What do you mean by kill?) (Kissing her.) And just when I was leaning in for the kiss, my mom came home from work and went to the passenger side of her car to grab a few things she needed to work on. When she looked straight and saw the girl and I were about to kiss, she yelled, DANIEL EDWARD JONES! She … marched. . or ran … or did a combination of both up to where we were at. She grabbed my ear and said to the girl, You can go home now. After she said that, she pulled me in the house (Did she add torque when she grabbed your ear? Cause I remember it being absolutely painful …) and yelled, DANIEL, I DO NOT WANT YOU TO SEE HER AGAIN, DO YOU HEAR ME!

I replied, Why, Ma? We weren’t gonna do anything, just a simple kiss.

Don’t kiss her, don’t even, Mom said.

What? Does she have cooties? No, I stopped believing that after a while. But can I at least walk her home? I ended out asking.

Well, the world is too crazy to let her walk all by herself, so yes to that. Just when I was about to walk out the door, she stopped me and said, BUT! You have to take her home in less than twenty-five minutes.

But, Mom, to walk to her house would take at least twenty-five minutes. To run at full steam would take fifteen minutes.

Any time that’s below twenty-five minutes, take it or leave it.

Come on, Mom, don’t start getting all hysterical on me now.

You do realize that you’re wasting time talking to me, right?

I see that, but I … you’re serious, aren’t you?

Now twenty-four minutes …, she said, looking at her watch. I then I darted out of the door. Before I ran for it, I grabbed the girl whom I was having the talk with the tongues with by her hand and proceeded to run with her to her house. You see, I was a track star back in middle school, so while I was running like … well … a track-star, I was dragging her like a sack of meat I got from the butcher’s shop.

Daniel … can you … please just … SLOW DOWN! she said under heavy breaths.

OR HOW ABOUT THIS, YOU CAN PICK UP THE PACE AND, I DON’T KNOW, RUN! I yelled back at her. She attempted to run, but I wasn’t stopping, so I bet it was hard trying to start running … with flip-flops on.

When we reached her house, instead of waiting for her father to come out and letting him know that his daughter was home and safe, I just kind of placed her on her front porch and ran off. (By placed, Daniel meant that he summoned his thirteen-year-old might to throw her to her front porch from three-fourths across her front yard.) The only thing I noticed after I did the act and started running back home was that her father walked out-front. When he saw that his little girl was on the ground, crying her eyes out, he talked to her. And I don’t know how the conversation went, simply because I was so focused on running. I can imagine the short dialogue went something like this:

DADDY, DANIEL HURT ME!

What, baby girl?

HE THREW ME!

With anger in his voice, I heard him yelling toward my direction, YOU HURT MY BABYGIRL! And then I saw a shadowy figure running straight after me. I thought that dark figure was a demon or something supernatural. I did mention that I was a track star in middle school, so with the combination of fear and adrenaline that activated when I thought that a demon or a monster was chasing me, I went into my panicked-run state and ran even faster to home. I could hear him loudly wheezing and tiring-out. By the time I reached my house, I couldn’t stop on a dime. So I ended up slamming into the front-door, creating a big thud heard within the home. I ended up lying on the ground, holding my head in excruciating pain. Owen opened the door and said, Now, what sort of pickle has Daniel found himself in this time? He started the sentence in a high pitch that ended out low.

I moaned out, Just … shutup and help me get up … He helped me up and held the door open as I walked into the house. I did so while holding my head (probably with a knot developing), and when Owen asked what that was, I said, I don’t really feel like explaining it to you … not that I don’t like you to know or anything, but. . . it’s complicated … Then I proceeded to walk upstairs. Owen walked back to the couch with him probably saying something like, Whatever. At least it wasn’t me who took a nosedive onto the door.

Well anyways, let’s start from when I was younger. My older brother used to always pick on me, and it was the typical older brother picks on the younger one because he has more experience. (Or you’d wish …) So I can remember this one time when he was eight and I was two, and Owen broke a prized item of Dad’s. It was a bowling trophy he won with his friends after a tournament. (And he treated that thing like it was an accomplishment besides gaining love from Elizabeth and producing Owen, Daniel, and Jessica.) The reason why I can remember about the tragic loss of a member of the family (Well, he surely acted like it was a loss in the family.) was because at first, he was mad, but in that calm mad, you know, when you did something stupid but you’re too young to realize the fault behind what you did. So your parents can’t be mad at you because you didn’t know any better. But in the end, Owen owned up to the crime by saying, Um … Dad? Dad looked back at Owen and said, Yes, son?

Maybe Daniel didn’t break your trophy … Dad then stood up and walked up to Owen. What? Now, I didn’t know what was going on, so I walked off to sit in front of the tele to watch cartoons. I don’t remember what happened beyond that point. The other day, he told me about that incident in a coffee shop we were in, saying, It would’ve gone into my favor if you weren’t in that ‘cutesy’ faze, and I wasn’t so guilt-ridden.

I then said, Remorse, you’d be a terrible murderer. You’ll be all like, ‘I killed that person, and how would that make me feel?’ Followed by a couple of days of doing stuff on your own. Playing a series of somewhat sad songs in your head. Like in most romantic movies where the main character realizes that he’s shit without her.

He replied, You should probably write a book about our conversations, man.

No, I’m too … I don’t have the patience to write one …

He then got up and said, Come on, man, you can do it. Just sit down in front of a laptop and start off a little. Like, remember those notebooks you used to have that were filled with either drawings about those really detailed cartoons—

You mean anime—

Or you’d be writing your own scripts or comic books, one of which was about a guy who was telling his own stories about college.

Yeah, but …

So why not write about your own experiences? he finished off saying.

But I don’t think that people would be interested in—

Mess them! You’re only writing to those people who give a damn. Sure, you might have some haters … but you’re rolling in the money, man! He then chugged the last bit of coffee and threw the cup in the garbage. He then put his hand on my shoulder and said, Just a thought, bro … You should probably think about it. He then walked out of the coffee shop. So that’s how my brother is. As soon as we have gotten older, he had experience, I had experience, we’ve gotten closer as the years went by. (Obviously.) Oh! And my inner psyche was the last voice in the … (Why don’t you call them brackets? And I will jump in here and there throughout this book. Like it, don’t like it, I don’t really care.)

Now let’s talk about my sister for a sec. She’s like a bundle of joy. In fact, if you find a bundle of joy, try looking for my sister. She was about … eight years old back then? Well, if I’m getting it right. Hey, my memory is failing me ’cause I’m getting older. Yes, I’m twenty-seven, but I have the mind of a seventy-two-year-old sometimes. (God-blast, man, why did you have to make a comment like that?) Anyways, she’s a bundle of joy. (You’ve already said that, genius.) She makes my day. In fact, there was a day when I was younger, like twelve or thirteen; and I was, I guess, looking glum. I was sitting on my bed, overthinking ’bout stuff. (Over-thinking –verb-: to think about something too much or for too long.) She so happened to walk into my room and asked me, I’m looking for my doll. Have you seen it? While I was trying to suck up whatever manliness I had left (Hey, there’s no shame in crying. A man can only stay neutral for so long before he cracks up in sorrow), she stared at my face, which made me kinda uncomfortable. She finally said, Daniel, what’s wrong? I wiped away the tears that were forming in my eyes and said while trying to gain my composure, Nothing, nothing’s bothering me … After I said that, I passed my hand through my shagged-out mini-’fro and stopped at the back of my neck. Still looking at me, she walked up to me and said, You know, there’s always Mom and Dad to talk to. She walked off and found her doll in her closet. She ran back to my room to show me that she found it. She felt accomplished & wanted to tell me how she found it.

I would like to mention my lifetime friends. There’s Grant (Bro-friend of Daniel, whom he’ll mention in the next chapter), who has a family of his own. He works as an animator on one of those shows that deal with anime. Fred (Another bro-friend of Daniel) is a big-time rapper. (While not that big, big enough to get nation-wide attention, not worldwide attention …yet.) Sometimes I help him write a few songs, like Few Million or Jackpot. He really turned out to be creative and have a well of good ideas. Alex (Another one of Daniel’s bro-friends) ended up becoming a doctor, so yeah, whenever I fall ill for some reason, instead of going to the doctor and spending money, I can go talk to Alex and see what his diagnosis is before heading to another doctor. And Heather, I’ll mention her in the next chapter, but just in case, Heather. (You know who she is. This isn’t a love story, well … it kinda is … but this is the start of a beautiful relationship.) And yeah, so … .enjoy!

CHAPTER 2

More Backstory (Current Stuff), Daniel’s Views on Things, and Elementary School (’Cause Why Not)

I can still remember those times when I was in Colorado, those times when I still lived in the state before Heather and I moved to San Diego, California. But I’m typing this in Aurora, because we’re visiting family here. Our parents still live here in Denver (Well, technically Aurora … .), and so does her family. My brother resides in Colorado, and he lives in one of the counties not too far away from Mom and Dad. He has a family also, and if there were levels (Levels as in what you would see in RPGs mainly.), he would probably be up at level 30. He has a wonderful wife and three kids: Irene, (the eldest child, who is thirteen), Denise (the middle child, bout eleven), and Shirley, (I know, I know, old names, but he wanted to name them after the family members who were born in both my mother’s and father’s side of the family and were a positive influence around them while they both were growing up.)

And my sister is living in one of the dorms in this university that’s in Boulder. She comes down to Aurora when she has breaks, (like spring break or winter break,) to visit our parents. There was a time just before I started writing this, man, I wish I could’ve recorded this one moment, so when I knocked on the door, Jessica said loudly at the other end, Who is it!

I then said in a deep voice, I have a present to a person named I paused for five seconds—Ms. Jones. Am I speaking to her? She opened the door, beginning to look in her purse. How much do we owe you? she said, still looking down in her purse trying to find her wallet. I cleared my throat and said, The only thing you owe me is a hug … Jessica gained a curious look then looked up and saw my charming face. Her face turned from an annoyed-twisted expression, into a mischievous smile. Daniel? she questioned.

Jessica … why are you looking like that? We both hugged, and she started to softly cry.

Why are you crying? You know I hate it when you start crying, I said, annoyed.

But I haven’t seen you for so long …

Yeah. We ended the hugging after two minutes. Jessica was sniffing before she continued, So what’s new with you, Dan?

We walked into the house. Mom and Dad were shocked as their prodigal child had returned. Both of them walked to me and Jessica, and Mom cried as she walked up to me to give me a hug. Dad just walked to me and hugged me after mom. It’s been a while, son. he said. How has it been going? With you being married and all.

I replied, It’s been fine, with me and Heather living together … Heather walked into the house, and while Mom and Dad were greeting her, Jessica didn’t do it until I mentioned it.

Jessica, aren’t you going to at least say hi to Heather?

In an annoyed-tone, she said, Hi, Heather …

Heather said happily, Hey, Jess! Jessica looked at Heather with a disapproving smile. I elbowed